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A conservative media company has sued YouTube, saying that the online video giant illegally censors the short videos it produces.

PragerU was founded in 2011 by Dennis Prager, a prominent conservative writer and radio talk show host. The organization is a nonprofit that espouses conservative viewpoints on various issues by means of short, animated videos, which it posts on its own website, as well as its YouTube channel.

"Google/YouTube have represented that their platforms and services are intended to effectuate the exercise free speech among the public," write PragerU lawyers in the organization's complaint (PDF), filed Monday. "As applied to PragerU, Google/YouTube use their restricted mode filtering not to protect younger or sensitive viewers from 'inappropriate' video content, but as a political gag mechanism to silence PragerU."

PragerU says that at least 37 of its videos continue to be censored by "restricted mode filtering," which limits views based on certain characteristics, including the age of the viewer. Those videos include "educational content ranging from the legal creation of Israel and the history of the Korean War, to the idea of diversity of thought on college campuses."

YouTube's actions are "absurd, arbitrary, capricious, and devoid of any rational basis," the lawsuit states. The lawsuit cites cases like Fashion Valley Mall v. National Labor Relations Board, in which the California Supreme Court allowed protesters to pass out leaflets on mall property, even though they were advocating for boycotts of certain stores.

Another precedent PragerU points to is Marsh v. Alabama, a US Supreme Court case in which a Jehovah's Witness was handing out religious pamphlets on the sidewalk in Chickasaw, a privately owned "company town" near Mobile. The high court ruled that Grace Marsh had a right to hand out pamphlets even though the sidewalk she stood on was owned by a private corporation.

The lawsuit includes a long list of PragerU videos that have been restricted or "demonetized" by YouTube, and it lists videos on similar topics that have not been restricted. For instance, PragerU claims its YouTube video "Are the police racist?" was restricted or demonetized, but it points to a list of six other videos related to police behavior and racism that weren't restricted.

Conservatives aren't the only ones who feel that YouTube has censored or demonetized their videos. Earlier this year, a British YouTuber who made videos with a "feminist and queer perspective" complained that her videos were being filtered into a restricted mode and were marked as "potentially inappropriate content."

"We believe they are engaging in an arbitrary and capricious use of their ‘restricted mode’ and ‘demonetization’ to restrict conservative political thought," said PragerU founder Dennis Prager in a statement (PDF) about the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims that YouTube's policy violates the First Amendment, the California Constitution's right to free speech and California civil rights laws, and the Lanham Act, which bars unfair competition.

If the platform is not either government owned or government operated, Google can censor to it's heart's content. You have the right to speak, and they have the right to not lend you use of their platform.

Is the government ordering the filtering? If not, then no, it doesn't.

+9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999

Pretty much.

Now, that said, I think the companies might be violating the spirit of free speech which they claim to have embraced for those platforms. Although I have no problem with them letting certain speakers be restricted or even kicking them off. Just because the government can't shut you up doesn't mean other people in this country/world can't shut you up on behalf of the rest of us.

Although I really much prefer Cloudflares version, that single instance not withstanding for that one website being kicked off. A platform which purports to say "we're neutral" should make much more of an effort to be true neutral (e.g. Google, Facebook, Twitter).

I want to highlight that they're referencing California's constitution's rule for free speech which is different from the federal, particularly in regards to what's considered a "public space."

Edit: IANAL but for clarity, Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins (the case that was reviewed for precedent in the Fashion Valley Mall) was based around CA's constitution guaranteeing an "affirmative right to speech" as opposed to the federal constitution that uses negative phrasing to block government prevention of speech.

I know a lot of Heroes of the Storm streamer that have had some videos demonetized. Perhaps it is YouTube targeting them, it is just that certain triggers result in it.

Also, isn't Restricted Viewing different from demonetization. For one, it is when YouTube feels that it isn't appropriate for younger viewers, and the other is when YouTube feels it wouldn't be a good idea to link advertisers because of polarizing opinions (or anything objectionable) in the video. So if you start spouting out holocaust denial, then perhaps Dawn dish soap doesn't want their advertisements on your video.

So your speech isn't really being stopped. YouTube didn't take down your videos, you just aren't making money on them.

Another precedent PragerU points to is Marsh v. Alabama, a US Supreme Court case in which a Jehovah's Witness was handing out religious pamphlets on the sidewalk in Chickasaw, a privately owned "company town" near Mobile.

Google does not constitute a de facto government like the case cited. Yet, anyway.

YouTube has been demonetising just about every video by anyone who is open about being LGBT, even if the video has been completely unrelated, like a vlog about eating lunch or something. On the other hand, they were running PragerU videos ranting about trans people as ads in front of other videos. Those rants were still up last time I looked, despite being reported for hate speech by many people. They don't seem very censored to me.

Well the first amendment argument is obviously silly, but the suit also throws out a bunch of random California laws and CA is full of screwy things like this. So maybe he has a point.

The cases appear to be related to the “Pruneyard” rule that requires operators of a commercial space like a mall to allow peaceful demonstrations, subject to reasonable restrictions on time, place, and method.

I’m not aware of any precedent that requires such a demonstrator to be allowed to monetize their activity.

Further information on Wikipedia of cases following the Marsh company town ruling.

Quote:

While the Marsh holding at first appears somewhat narrow and inapplicable to the present day due to the disappearance of company towns from the United States, it was raised in the somewhat high-profile 1996 cyberlaw case, Cyber Promotions v. America Online, 948 F. Supp. 436, 442 (E.D. Pa. 1996).[1] In that case, Cyber Promotions wished to send out "mass email advertisements" to AOL customers. AOL installed software to block those emails. Cyber Promotions sued on free speech grounds, and cited the Marsh case as authority for the proposition that, even though AOL's servers were private property, AOL had opened them to the public to a degree sufficient that constitutional free speech protections could be applied. The federal district court disagreed, thereby paving the way for spam filters at the ISP level.

In Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, the Supreme Court distinguished a private shopping mall from the company town in Marsh and held that the mall had not been sufficiently dedicated to public use for First Amendment free speech rights to apply within it.

I'm not about to go read the latest YouTube ToS again, but they'll continue to have this accusation thrown at them again and again until they find a way to equally applying them across the board.

I'm not at all convinced they aren't applying their rules equally across the board. The problem seems to be those who are utterly convinced that they're being targeted, without a single shred of evidence that there's anything special about their treatment relative to others.

Is the government ordering the filtering? If not, then no, it doesn't.

+9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999

Pretty much.

Now, that said, I think the companies might be violating the spirit of free speech which they claim to have embraced for those platforms. Although I have no problem with them letting certain speakers be restricted or even kicking them off. Just because the government can't shut you up doesn't mean other people in this country/world can't shut you up on behalf of the rest of us.

Although I really much prefer Cloudflares version, that single instance not withstanding for that one website being kicked off. A platform which purports to say "we're neutral" should make much more of an effort to be true neutral (e.g. Google, Facebook, Twitter).

No. The "spirit of free speech" is also the spirit of free association; you can say what you want, but we won't force anyone to give you a soapbox if they don't want to.

If one entity has enough market power to silence others on its own, and they wield that power abusively, that's not a free speech problem. It's an antitrust problem. The solution is to enforce antitrust laws and promote market competition.

The only possible problem here is that YouTube, possibly, is the only viable soapbox. Even if you accept that to be true, we solve this problem by creating a better market for soapboxes, not forcing any soapbox owner to do business with people. You could have 1,000 soapboxes, and if the owners of all of them want to refuse to lend them to Nazis, that's 1,000 individual cases of their freedom of association (to not associate with Nazis) at work.

Imagine if phone companies could deny you service because they didn't like what you said on the phone.

Get back to us when YouTube becomes a public utility.

Private companies BECOME public utilities to stop this sort of behavior. Many laws were passed back in the good old days to force AT&T to serve customers they didn't care to serve.

I have no idea if a court can or could declare these companies like Youtube and Facebook public utilities, but I'm guessing if they don't, laws will be passed to prevent them from denial of services for any reason than actually breaking laws.

If you just don't like what someone has to say, it's easy enough to block them. I wish I could block sales calls on my phone.